


I Will Be Back One Day

by A_Starry_Night



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Alec Hardy & Ellie Miller Are Best Friends, Amnesia, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Physical Torture, Psychological Torture, Re-Education
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:47:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27821758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Starry_Night/pseuds/A_Starry_Night
Summary: It was common knowledge that five years ago, Ellie Miller and Alec Hardy died shortly after closing Sandbrook for good. But now it seemed they had been found alive, and their story of faked accidents, kidnapping, and torture by a shadowy organization placed not just the two of them but several others directly into the path of vengeance from an organization that did not forgive betrayal. With a mole in the police force, and no way of knowing who an ally or enemy could be, it was merely a question of time when someone would be killed or, worse, recaptured.
Relationships: Alec Hardy & Ellie Miller, Beth Latimer & Ellie Miller
Comments: 7
Kudos: 28





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This was my NaNoWriMo project, which is also the reason why I haven't been active on here for an entire month. I've got a little over 30,000 words typed up so far and the story's not quite finished, but I've got enough to start steady updates. 
> 
> Please heed the tags for this story. There will be both mentioned and graphic torture in later chapters, along with monumental mental manipulation and the like. Be that as it is, I am not a psychologist and so I apologize if some of the things Alec and Ellie do or say in this fic isn't realistic. 
> 
> Also, the timeline and ages of everyone and everything in Broadchurch canon has stayed the same except for Alec and Ellie's ages. They're both about five years younger than they're supposed to be, but Tom is still eleven at the time of Danny's murder and Daisy is still fifteen at the time of Broadchurch S2. Not a huge plot detail, but important to me anyway, and for certain things that happen in later chapters.

She found him on the very edge of the hospital roof, looking out on the open sprawling town spread out like quilt-work around them. The sun had set, and the street lights flickered in the deepening dark, and her ears prickled with the sound of the rumbling sea. Her steps were as silent as always, but he knew she was there.

“Got away from your babysitters, then?”

She gritted her teeth as she sat down beside him, dangling her legs over the side. It was a long drop below them; at one time she might have been nervous being so close to a dangerous drop, but not now. “For the moment. Are orderlies and nurses really that observant all the time? I'm tempted to knock them into the wall next time they come by asking me if I'm all right, but I can't do that, can I?”

“You could,” he said dryly. "Might give them the wrong message, though, and tie you to your bed." They sat together for a long moment in silence, willing to allow the quiet of the night speak for itself, and then he asked, “Did they put wrist straps on you too?”

“No,” she said, surprised. “They did to you? Isn’t that a bit sexist? Or did they not think a woman needed to be strapped down?”

“Probably didn’t think you could do as much damage if you freaked out.” He knocked his foot gently against hers. “Which is _completely_ their mistake.”

They hadn’t seen each other for over a month, or so the hospital thought—for their own good, they had been told. Apparently they had years of brainwashing and torture—both psychological and physical—to sort through, and being near each other was counterproductive to their doctors’ efforts. They snuck visits anyway at any time they could, having become too reliant on each others’ presences to be comfortable by themselves; another unhealthy habit, but their lives had been hard ones, both the remembered and the apparent truth, and they had been dealt truly harsher blows over the past few months than they cared to admit.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” she finally sighed, rubbing tiredly at her eyes and leaning backwards. Vertebrae cracked with the movement and she grimaced as the bunched skin on her shoulder pulled tight. “Damn it.”

“Let me see.” He turned so that he could lift her shirt, inspecting the thick white scar that twisted around her shoulder—evidence of where he had had to dig into her flesh to scrape out the tracker embedded there. He had done so methodically, remorselessly, and his expression didn’t flicker as he looked at the remnants of his handiwork. His own back bore a very similar mark where she had done the same to him, so fair was fair. “Has your psychiatrist asked you about this?”

She nodded. “Mainly wanted to know why I haven’t freaked out over it. _‘Oh, but Ellie, it was clearly a horrible thing being maimed so badly, even if it was for a viable reason. You must feel so badly about it._ ’” Her snide impersonation of said psychiatrist made him huff a short laugh of amusement. “Must I always have an emotional reaction to things? My sessions seem to only consist of their wanting me to break down and cry about how _bad_ everything was, to yell and curse and scream about the inhumanity of it all.”

He lowered her shirt and nodded. “Sounds similar to my own. Apparently I’ve had issues with PTSD before due to the DI job, insomnia, the like. Finally figured out why I’ve always had nightmares about drowning.”

She startled, spinning around so fast it caught them both off-guard. “You remembered something?” she demanded with wide eyes. “You bastard, why didn’t you mention that straight off?! That’s _important_!”

“Oi, don’t snap at me! You think this is easy to talk about?” They glared at each other for a moment before she sighed and conceded defeat, knowing that it was hard to talk about. “Nobody else knows. Just you, now.” Slightly mollified by his response she relaxed a little and ran her fingers through her hair, tangling her fingers in the curls. She had been wearing her hair longer but the hospital had cut it short with her reluctant permission, all in the name of hoping to help her feel like herself again.

The only problem was, she _didn’t_ know who Ellie Miller was. Not really. Not in the ways that mattered.

She hissed as her fingers caught in a particularly tangled curl, but before she could rip her hand outwards and take some hair with it he caught her hand in his and quietly worked on extracting them. “I think it was when we solved Sandbrook together. You know how I was supposed to have been the one to find Pippa Gillespie’s body in the river?” Quietly she nodded, remembering the convoluted cases, the explanations, the pictures that they had both been shown; she recalled the information she’d been told about Sandbrook, about how Ellie Miller and Alec Hardy of Broadchurch PCD had solved a years-long case together to bring justice to two murdered girls. “I told you about it back then, we were in a car together and I told you about almost drowning reaching her in the river.”

Silence. She sat in deep and troubled silence before she finally looked over her shoulder at him. “No tricks?”

He shook his head. “No tricks. It was genuine.”

“How do you _know_ that?” Her voice grew sharp with desperation, a deep-seated panic that both of them had been feeling but hid so well. “How can you ever say that again? This could be another one of _their_ tricks, make us think we know something of our past lives and then rip it away from us—”

“Car-Ellie.” He caught himself at the last minute, called her by the name she’d been apparently born with. His expression did flicker then, and she knew their thoughts were suddenly running in the same direction: _too weird_. “Shit’s sake— _Miller_.” They both relaxed hearing that—it felt right. “Why make up a memory like that? We were wired to forget everything of our lives, to forget the cases we worked on together, so it would be counterproductive to manufacture a memory that would be a direct lead to those lives, wouldn’t it?”

“But you told Ellie Miller about it,” she said quietly. “And everything that we’ve read stated that Alec Hardy never spoke to _anyone_.” Interviews, yeah, but the Broadchurch Echo was the only one that really sprang to mind; personal recollections said he didn’t socialize, didn’t have any close friends, and on paper it seemed that even the two of them had had a vitriolic relationship. 

“Yeah, but why did Alec Hardy ask Ellie Miller to help solve Sandbrook if we didn’t have _some_ sort of trust between us then?” That was something else they’d been lectured on before—referring to their real identities in the third person. It was dehumanizing themselves, or so the claim went; but that only worked if they felt like the people they apparently were. “You were younger,” he continued quietly, finished untangling her fingers and gently running his own through the rest of her hair. “Tired. Your hair was a bit longer than it is now. I told you about carrying her body out of the water and you cried.”

She felt a flash of disgust at that; neither of them cried, their handlers had made sure of that. Their respective duties, their assignments, their _lives_ demanded cold rationale and quick action without ruminating on what they had done; tears were never the answer to anything unless they were to get them from one point to another. She heard the slight note of wondering curiosity in his voice as he told her that, though, and she reminded herself that for all their similarities they still saw the world very differently. While her initial reaction was disgust, he was more focused on the idea they had once been human enough to do something like cry.

She slumped, suddenly tired. “We’ve got to get out of here,” she said again.

“When do you want to go?”

She looked up at the stars, watching the moon in the sky slowly climb up high above them. It was truly amazing what she could notice and appreciate now without the constant barrage of programming coming down on her at all hours of the day. “Any time that you’re ready,” she said with a slight smirk as she looked over her shoulder at him. “I’ve been waiting for you to get off your arse and get the hint.”

“I could say the same thing about you, you know.” He was silent for a long moment again. “You’ve been spending a lot of time talking with those boys of yours on the phone—”

“And you’ve been spending a lot of time video-calling with your daughter—"

“Do you feel like they’re _yours_ , yet?”

“No,” she admitted quietly, “they don’t. You?”

He shook his head. “No. Sometimes she’ll make a face or say something in just a way and I’ll feel _something_ , but it’s never for long. She gets sarcastic like I do, though.”

“Scary,” she said dryly, and he huffed another laugh. They knew exactly who was the scarier of the two of them, and it most certainly wasn’t him. “Are we going to try and head out before the organization makes a move, or wait for them to do something first?”

He mulled the questions over. “I think the organization’s planning on making a move soon. Haven’t you noticed how the one night orderly seems to be hanging around so much more all of a sudden? Maybe we should wait to see what they have planned. We can always escape afterwards. But we should give the kids some sort of proper goodbye this time around before we start looking into this clusterfuck of an organization.”

“Agreed.” The files of their supposed ‘deaths’ over five years ago now had been a terrible shock for both of them and explained why Daisy’s and Tom’s reactions seeing them alive had been particularly teary and disbelieving, and they didn’t want them to grieve their losses again without a proper goodbye.

Or at least a goodbye less abrupt and scarring than a faked car crash and a fire.

What else did they have to look forward to? They would be confined to this hospital for the rest of their lives if the CID had anything to say about it, labelling them as too mentally unstable and brainwashed to exist alongside normal society; but they were both still highly intelligent and pragmatic, and stubborn to a fault, and more than that there was a mystery to solve. The local police had already done their own investigation into the organization that had captured the two of them five years ago but had drawn up nothing so far.  
But the local police weren’t Alec Hardy and Ellie Miller. The two of them apparently had a thing for solving the unsolvable cases, and if they couldn’t solve their own then they really didn’t deserve the title of Detectives.


	2. Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a few months before the prologue, and the plot starts to unravel due to a simple newspaper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please try to ignore the font change in the middle of the chapter. I tried to fix it and I was tempted to just delete the whole thing and start over, but I've got to go to work in an hour and I don't have the time to do that.

The woman who had once been known as Ellie Miller was woken up in the usual one of two ways: her handler knocking on her door and letting herself in before abruptly moving to attack position. She had barely laid a hand on the sleeping woman before her wrist was grabbed and a knife flashed in the dim lighting, meaning to strike true, but her handler lithely stepped out of range of the arching weapon, circled her wrist out of hold, and stepped backwards with her hands raised. 

“Good to know your instincts haven’t slipped,” the woman said dryly. She was a small nondescript individual with brown hair, blue eyes, and average looks, but she had a kill count under her belt that was literally longer than her arm. Her name—or the name she was known as, anyway—was simply Jill.

“They shouldn’t if you keep waking me up like this,” came the retort, and with good reason—the agent once known as Ellie Miller, now known as Carrie, had killed two other handlers before Jill when their own reflexes proved too slow. Carrie had become one of the organization’s more vicious recruits once her training had been successfully completed, which had truly been surprising considering that of the two detectives she had broken first; usually ones brought in in pairs were tested together, and whoever broke first was the one to die, but the organization had been told very clearly: _the detectives worked best together_. To lose the one meant losing the other and their effectiveness.

So they had invested their time into Carrie, molded her exactly as they saw fit, and she in turn had given them her loyalty and her fire when she completed her tasks. She was unduly underestimated time and time again by her targets, who only ever saw a harmless-looking woman, and she was ambitious with a tongue sharp enough to cut when angered, looking all the time to climb higher in the ranks.

But first Carrie would have to work her way through Jill; it would happen eventually, but it wasn’t a priority. 

“Got another assignment for you, then,” Jill said with a humorless smirk, and she handed over a plain folder for her to look through. “Target, address, instructions—all there for your pleasure.” 

“Solo or partnered?” Her attention was fixed on the contents of the folder, rifling through the information with quick efficiency.

“Partnered. The usual.” Jill smiled humorlessly again and turned towards the door to let herself out. “You have until 0800 hours before you need to head out.”

The door shut behind her, and Carrie turned to look at the clock—0600, the same as always when given an assignment. Standing up to dress, she stretched out her stiff back and slipped on plain clothes and shoes before stepping out into the hallway and heading towards the kitchenette. She always followed the same routine and tea was a must when it was available to make. The cottage she lived in was small but comfortable, and most important of all it was secluded—the only people that came by were her handlers, and her various partners when they needed to go on a job, and only they knew about the various cameras and tech that guaranteed her privacy. 

Therefore she wasn’t terribly surprised to find her partner Nick already seated at her small table. “Tea’s ready.”

She rolled her eyes at his dry remark, but she poured herself a cuppa anyway knowing he would have made it exactly to her liking. “When did you get here?” Certainly not with Jill—it was a well-known secret that he and Jill deeply disliked each other and tried to interact as little as possible. She did hide a smirk realizing that he had likely arrived here before Jill had and had also likely used it as an excuse to be an arsehole to her.

“An hour ago. I may have pissed Jill off a bit more than usual, so if we don’t work on assignment together for another few months that would be why.” There it was. He was an arsehole, even to Carrie, but that was their way and always would be. They were still one of the most effective partnerships the organization had, so they were allowed to work together with much more leeway than anyone else likely received.

“You know one of these days she’s liable to kill you herself.” Carrie sat down across from him, sliding the folder across the worn table to let him see. “Same information you were given?”

He rifled through the papers quietly for a moment before nodding, his Scottish accent grating and rough. “Yeah.” They were careful to keep their heads turned away from the camera they knew was embedded in the wall so that their handlers couldn’t read their lips, but Carrie marginally relaxed anyway hearing his confirmation. She had no desire to repeat their last assignment and its violent end, or the re-education that they had forced on him due to it. 

The organization was all they knew, but that didn’t mean they had to trust it completely.

They finished their tea in relative peace and she stood to finish her preparations for the day while he looked more closely at the assignment details, and she felt slightly better for seeing him and his physical state. It had been close to two months since he had been sent to headquarters for a going-over, and she had only caught a glimpse of him in that intervening time, and it was clear they had had to be a bit more forceful than usual.

She’d felt for him, but it was the nature of their jobs. An agent crippled by guilt was ineffective, and the inability to turn it off was dangerous. _You’re working a case now_. “Ready?” she asked, brushing the errant thought away. He nodded and stood from the table.

“’Course.” He handed the casefile over to her for safekeeping and headed for the door with her trailing behind at his heels. She grumbled under her breath about his long legs but there wasn’t much heat behind the words, having grown used to it. 

Their drive was mostly silence; neither of them were talkative people, and they felt most comfortable in company that understood that—so of course that was why their partnership did so well, when they weren’t bickering doing the job. That had been something of a vague concern on the organization’s part wondering how effective they would be, but their back-and-forth was simply part of their dynamic.

It actually helped motivate themselves, but the organization didn’t really understand that.

“So who’s doing what this time, then?” she finally spoke up when they were merely thirty minutes away from their destination, pulling on a nondescript jacket over her shirt. She had dyed her hair blonde this time and straightened it—wigs were always suggested as good disguises in the novels or movies, but the organization usually spoke against them. Too easily lost or tugged off if there was an altercation. “You want to take point this time, since I did it last?”

He glanced over at her from the driver’s seat. “Why not? Nice of you to offer.”

“We don’t _do_ nice,” she reminded him with a pointed look. “We’re apparently not even supposed to be human.”

“I’d say some of our targets are less human than we are,” he snorted, rolling his eyes. “Did you see what Jones has been doing?”

“Yeah. His last venture nearly exposed us, never mind the trafficking.”

“The trafficking isn’t what we’re getting him for,” he reminded her, and she nodded. 

“I know. Still. His mistake.” It would be the last one he ever made, anyway, and if they did their jobs correctly he would never know what hit him. “What are we doing first? His stocks crashing or the poison?”

He mulled over the options as he turned a corner; the sign telling them that they were only ten miles from the town rushed past them. “I think if we time it right the stocks will crash first. Give him a little while to panic about it. The poison is the slow-acting one.”

In this day and age of technology and innovation it was easy to hack into systems and cause dissent from within the computers themselves, just as it was easy for the organization to come up with different ways to kill people. Jones had begun to turn in his loyalties, passing along weapons and stock in the black market to the organization’s adversaries—so they would end his money _and_ him in one single trip.

The buildings they drove up to were top of the line business corporation buildings, all bulletproof glass windows that reflected the sunlight; a bit of an odd addition to such old and quaint surroundings such as this English city. “It’s a bit of an eye sore, isn’t it?” she mused aloud as she stood up and closed the door behind her. She heard his answering huff of amusement but he was already walking down the sidewalk; the building itself had no parking lot and so they had had to park four blocks away.

“Try telling _him_ that.” He glanced over his shoulder as she sped up to reach his side, giving her a glancing up-and-down. “You ready?”

She nodded, threading her arm in his and looking the part of the dutiful wife. It was no issue to act the part—it was merely part of the illusion—and it was to bring around a successful completion of their assignment, but sometimes she wondered what people saw in them that they thought she and Nick would be good partners.

The receptionist at the front doors was a soft-looking blonde with dark eyes and a fake smile, with curves in all the right places and a knife hidden in the top of her boot. To be employed in Jones’s care was to be able to handle oneself in any given situation, his various buildings and business transactions covering what were situations that could quickly go south. 

“Mr. and Mrs. Frasier,” she said to them with a brief nod of her head, giving them both a quick once-over. They passed in without trouble, which Carrie found slightly surprising.

“Security is getting a bit lax,” she muttered to him as they continued on their way, and he grinned in response.

“Or maybe our cover is more believable than we thought,” he countered. They had spent several weeks setting themselves up in Jones’s circles, a seemingly wealthy couple looking to set up a presence in the corner of the black market Jones commanded, and so far everything the organization had made for them had stood up to the tests.

Of course, that was the beauty of this particular venture today; Jones would be ended and he’d never know that one of his partners was the one responsible. It was the way the organization worked, really.

Having taken point, it was Nick's job to do the actual set-up—she was merely there to watch his back and make sure it all went smoothly. This was yet another thing that set them apart from others in the organization. They had no problem splitting the responsibilities on any given assignment, focused more on the outcome of the directive than personal glory—but only with each other, of course. God help anyone who tried to curb Carrie’s ambition when it _wasn’t_ Nick she was working with.

“I’m afraid that Mr. Jones is not in today,” the secretary said apologetically when they made an inquiry. He sent Carrie a swift glance, looking for all the world like a disappointed client, and she pouted back before turning to the secretary. 

“You don’t suppose he could make an exception to come in? I _so_ wanted to meet him.” She sat forward in her seat, allowing the blouse she was wearing to shift and expose a significant amount of skin. “I had an… investment of my own I wanted to propose to him.”

Jones was also above everything else a womanizer. His staff all knew it and would make allowances. Sure enough, the secretary glanced her over and nodded after a moment. “I’ll see what I can do, ma’am.” 

Nick leaned over to her as the secretary walked away, whispering in her ear. “Likely she’s one of those quick affairs in the back room between clients.”

Carrie wrinkled her nose, shaking her head at the thought. “That’s just— _ew_.” Not the idea of sex—it had been awhile for her, after all, and she enjoyed it—but with a man like Jones? No thanks. She would sooner poison him herself than let him lay a hand on her. She eyed the secretary as she walked into the office to call Jones and smirked. “Go on, she’s distracted. I think she and Jones are going to have a bit of an argument right around now.”

She ignored Nick then as he stood from his seat, for all the world a woman weary of her husband, and listened to his footsteps fading as he walked away. It was growing crowded now, various clients and investment partners having come to socialize and meet with other potential contacts, but she was more than happy to flirt and smile with the man seated across from her. He was striking in a way, and she had no problem simply looking.

Silently she counted in her head as the seconds went by; they already knew the layout of the building and of Jones’s office, and she and Nick had estimated he would have at maximum five minutes to set up the poison that would end up killing Jones. She glanced over at the small office and saw the secretary gesturing wildly, looking quite cross indeed, and Carrie shook her head. Smiling coyly at the man at the opposite table one last time she stood and gathered up her belongings, her purse and coat, and began to walk aimlessly around, trying to decide whether she really wanted the triple chocolate mousse cupcake they had sitting among the refreshments.

A newspaper caught her eye sitting innocently on a table where a previous patron had left it, and Carrie nonchalantly sat down to rifle through it—just another tactic to be less conspicuous, but it was one that worked every time. Today she flipped through the news articles without a care, grinning a little at the latest local drama, but she abruptly froze when she reached the obituaries and remembrance pages.

It was a sentimental little message there, squeezed into the bottom right page; barely anything, really, not even twenty words. ‘ _It’s been five years, but I think of you every day. I love you, Mum_.’ It wasn’t the words that had caught her attention.

No, that had been the picture that went with the message. 

Carrie knew her own face; she looked at it in the mirror every day, after all, even if half of the time she had altered it with makeup and cosmetics. And the picture of the woman that accompanied this message was _her_. Younger, smiling with genuine happiness and with shorter hair that Carrie wore, but it was her own face looking up at her from the newspaper. Feeling suddenly dazed she looked for a name to accompany the words, and she found it in short order: a Tom Miller of Broadchurch, Dorset. She gazed down at the letters of his name and felt nothing except confusion. 

Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Nick moving back into view from the back, still inconspicuous, completely unaware of how her world had suddenly seemed to flip upside down. She felt nothing for those words, or for the name of the man who had said them, but every instinct and nerve in her body was _screaming_. Something wasn’t adding up, there was an inconsistency. 

_Again_.

Her indecisiveness had only lasted a few moments; her shock could be construed as a reader recognizing the name of someone they had once known. She hesitated as he passed her by, the signal they should go, the threat of reeducation looming should the organization catch her—but then she carefully slipped the newspaper page into an inner pocket and stood from the table again, closing the remainder of the paper shut in one smooth motion. Giving him a few minutes to walk ahead of her she ordered the chocolate cupcake to go and smiled warmly at the woman who handed it to her, knowing that the timer would already be counting down to Jones’s death. 

She walked four blocks before the crinkling of the newspaper drove her mad; stepping into the shadows of a narrow alley, she took it out of her pocket and looked again at the photo. It was small and slightly grainy but it was her. _Throw it away. Throw it away _now_. The internal command was strong enough she almost did just that, but at the last second her fingers clamped around the corner of the page and she couldn’t let it go. Instead she tore the message and its photo from the rest of the paper and dumped the rest of it in the trash before continuing on her way._

__

_Nick was waiting for her at their designated spot, leaning against the wall of a small shop at the corner of an intersection. She had taken too long—he raised an eyebrow at her late appearance, curious about her hesitation, but she breezed past him without a word, and didn’t meet his eye._

__

_He didn’t speak until they had reached their car. “It’s done, then, so what’s got you so worked up?”_

__

_She climbed into the driver’s seat and buckled up with a glare in his direction. There were cameras in the vehicle just as there were everywhere else, and their handlers were undoubtably listening in. His eyebrow sidled upwards even farther as he realized her meaning and settled into the seat beside her, silent again; instead of answering him she began to talk about the chances of their efforts being thwarted, or the poison being found out before their target was infected with it, but he had been quick and efficient enough that no one would have seen him doing anything. They were halfway back to her cottage amidst a sea of open fields when she allowed her phone to drift a little too close to the window._

__

_“But the poison is untraceable, so even if they suspect foul play they can’t prove— _shit_! Damn it!” The tires squealed as she slammed on the brakes, thrusting them both forward in their seats._

__

_“ _Jesus_ , Carrie! What the hell did you—” he broke off. “Did you actually lose your phone out the bloody window?”_

__

_“Yes, now get your bloody arse out of your seat and help me look for it!” The venom in her tone was real enough, her simmering anger enough to make her sudden anger at him passable, but she was glad to see him climb out nonetheless. They walked a good distance away from the vehicle before she spoke again. “Look at this.”_

__

_She was risking a lot. If he chose to turn her and her sudden doubts in to their handlers she faced reeducation, and although they had been partnered together for years now, their lot in life was to never trust completely._

__

_She’d always found it hard not to trust Nick, though, and considering the fact that he had allowed his breakdown to happen in her presence a few months ago he felt the same. He took the proffered slip of paper and stood very still as he read the message and gazed down at the photo, and when he looked up to meet her gaze he was very intent. “What do you make of it, then?”_

__

_“Who do you think it is?” she asked a mite desperately. “Look at that photo and tell me who that is!”_

__

_“It’s you,” he said without any sense of hesitation, and she wanted to slap him from how clinical he sounded._

__

_“Of course it’s me. What I’m confused about is _how_ it’s me.” Her hands were suddenly shaking and she took a deep breath to calm herself before she could freak out even more. She couldn’t _afford_ a breakdown right now._

__

_He was looking down at the picture again critically, curiously. “Don’t suppose the organization could be playing with us?”_

__

_“To do _what_?” she demanded scathingly, glaring at him. “To tempt us into, what? Looking into something we’re not supposed to be looking at?”_

__

_“By testing our loyalty, maybe?” he countered. “You _know_ they do that occasionally.”_

__

_Of course she did—that was one of the ways they weeded out agents who were starting to turn against the organization. “But they’ve never—they don’t test loyalty like _this_. This was just random chance! It’s not like I actively read newspapers even on assignment, this was on a whim!”_

__

_She was practically shouting by the end, and he was looking at her like he had never seen her before; both of them were occasionally emotional, yes, but he was usually the loud one when being so. She was not a shouter. “Carrie—”_

__

_“So what does that mean? Their influence can’t go that far, can it—?”_

__

_“ _Carrie_ —”_

__

_“—we’ve been too long here, they’re going to know something’s going on—”_

__

_“God’s sake, shut up for a minute, yeah?” he snapped, grabbing hold of her and leading her to the edge of the road—away from her phone, and potentially prying ears._

__

_“I don’t want to go back to reeducation!” She dug her fingers into his arm, her voice desperate and strained, staring up at him in burgeoning fright. “They’ll take this away, too, and I’ll forget about it, but I have to know what it’s about!”_

__

_“’Course you do,” he muttered sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “Gotta know everything, don’t you?”_

__

_“Like _you’re_ any better,” she snapped furiously, but somehow their bickering back and forth was soothing. This was normal. This was _safe_. Forcing herself to breathe through her inexplicable panic, they were quiet then as she thought of what she’d just discovered. The newspaper clipping was clenched in her fingers with a death grip, and if she wasn’t careful she was going to crinkle or tear it. She allowed herself to sit down, going over the different scenarios in her head of what this meant and why it had happened in the first place, and he was more than happy to sit in silence with his own thoughts._

__

_They sat in the dirt on the side of the road for a long time, until finally Carrie spoke up almost timidly. “What- did they do to you in reeducation the last time, Nick?”_

__

_He sat in silence for another long moment, caught off-guard by the inquiry. “Don’t know,” he finally said. “Isn’t that the point of reeducation, though? To make you forget so you don’t lose your efficiency?”_

__

_“It makes you wonder,” she said slowly, “what they’re making us forget.”_

__

_He lunged forward before she’d finished speaking, one hand covering her mouth. “Don’t,” he hissed, eyes dark and dangerous. “You finish that thought out loud and I _will_ turn you in.”_

__

_She ripped his fingers off her mouth, tempted to push him away but knowing how bad of an idea that would be. “You won’t,” she retorted. “You haven’t before.”_

__

_They remained deadlocked, trying to sense weakness, gauging truth; he ultimately backed off first. Releasing her fully he sat back wearily on the warm asphalt, looking suddenly as shellshocked as she felt. The reality of the photo was finally sinking in and they didn’t know what to do about it._

__

_Well. They did know what to do about it; the trick was going to be pulling it off successfully._

__

_“Do you… remember what it was that got you sent back to reeducation?” Her voice was hushed, almost drowned out by the swaying grasses around them; she already knew the answer to her question, but she wanted to hear him say it himself. The stubborn bastard stayed quiet, however, and she spoke for him. “Children dying has always bothered you. Always bothered us, no matter what they do to try and change that. Haven’t you ever wondered why that is? How many times have they sent us to reeducation without us remembering it for exactly that reason?”_

__

_“Of course I have.” His voice was as quiet as her own but at least he was speaking. “But it’s the organization… it’s all we’ve known.”_

__

_“I think the photo proves that wrong, Nick,” she said, almost gentle. “If this is me, and that message is addressed to the woman in the photo…” She trailed off but he understood—as he frequently seemed to do. He had always done that, he had always gauged her reactions, read her body language, and pushed her to her best._

__

_For the first time, she wondered _why_ that was._

__

_“Did you ever want kids?”_

__

_His question wasn’t as surprising as it could have been. “I wasn’t given the chance to find out.”_

__

_They sat again in troubled silence with the sun slowly creeping higher in the sky. Then: “You know they’ll punish if not outright kill us if we’re found out.” It wasn’t a question; it wasn’t even a warning. It was simply stated fact, because that was what the organization did; they pruned out the weak, did away with the agents who questioned too much and sometimes even executed those in view of the other agents those who had betrayed the organization, and of course it was right and just. The organization’s word was law and would be followed no matter how upsetting it could be._

__

_But there were too many inconsistencies now to ignore, too many things for Carrie to be fussy over; evidence was starting to surface of a nefarious plot, and it was an itch she had to scratch. From the look of his expression, it was one he had to as well. “Are we doing this, then?”_

__

_He chewed at the inside of his cheek for another moment but she already knew what his answer was going to be. “Have to, won’t we?”_

__

_She met his gaze steadily. “If you betray me to the organization, I’ll kill you myself.”_

__

_He smirked, more amused by her very real threat than anything else. “I’ll hold the same thing to you.”_

__

_“Good. Since you're more familiar with the records office you'll sneak into it when I provide the distraction.”_

__


	3. Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our resident detectives/agents find their definitive proof, and meet up with an old suspect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Potential TW for this chapter: death by choking happens. Tread carefully. In other news, it is so difficult treading the line of OOC stuff when it comes to Alec and Ellie's dynamic in this story, so please tell me if they feel too weird.

The sneaking of information was a more involved process than most would imagine, and they had to make sure their plan was as foolproof as possible. To alert the organization of their less-than-loyal thoughts was to reveal their hand too soon, and they couldn’t afford that; so they bided their time, continuing to perform to their handlers’ likings, separated when they weren’t on assignment together. The newspaper clipping had been buried alongside the road where they had discussed it, a piece of evidence they could not afford to lose, but Carrie has been too paranoid of it accidentally being found to allow it into her cottage.

So he had said goodbye to her with a sad sort of half-smile and a light kiss to her forehead before he headed out the door, congratulating her on a job well done as he did so. 

“I _know_ I did, you knob,” she called out before the door shut, and it was half amused and half irritated that she went to continue her day. Sure enough two days later Jill stopped by with the news that their intended target had just died from a heart attack; the poison that had killed him had not been discovered during the autopsy. 

“Keep this up,” Jill said with a bland smile, “and you’ll become a handler yourself. Your performances are becoming quite the talk amongst the organization.”

The rare praise made Carrie feel a flush of pleasure, proud to be effective enough the higher-ups were noticing. She had been silently wanting to become a handler herself for at least two years now, and every agent knew how hard it was to become one. She forced herself to remain completely still and keep a steady gaze, knowing to show too much ambition was unwise, but Jill was already moving on to other matters. 

“We have another assignment for you, then.” She handed over the standard folder like always, but Jill’s eyes were a bit sharper than normal, calculating and cold. 

Carrie opened the folder to look at the pictures of the dark-haired woman staring back up at her. She frowned and flipped through the written information, curious as to how they wanted her to fulfill the assignment. “This says she’s been in jail for five years. Why finish her off now?”

“She was never inducted into our organization, but she was a reliable contact for many years. But now she’s outlived her usefulness—she’s a danger to us as a whole, so we’re sending you out to take care of her.”

“Alone?” It seemed like a one-person job, but stranger things had been known to happen when it came to the organization’s decisions. 

“Of course. Unless you feel the need for help?” The question was sharp, sly. 

“No. I’ll head out as soon as possible.” She put the folder aside and stood to ready herself for the next mission, ignoring Jill now to do so. Used to this behavior Jill shook her head and turned back to the front door, letting it slam shut behind her as she did. 

Carrie finished with her clothes and took a moment to think about what she should look like going to the prison. Ultimately she decided to go blonde for this venture, and thinned her nose with makeup and filled out her mouth with lipstick. Her dark eyebrows she lightened with a special dye that washed out with her specific shampoo and blue contacts changed the color of her eyes. 

The prison was almost five hours away and she drove it in silence, mulling over the task she needed to complete. Contacts were not unheard of, and neither was it rare that they were killed when their usefulness was compromised or outlived; but she had not so far heard of one who had been put behind bars for so long before ultimately being executed. Five years…

‘ _It’s been five years, Mum, but I think of you every day_.’

Her grip tightened painfully on the steering wheel, and she breathed in sharply through her nose before forcing herself to relax. It would do no good to have a freak-out now, but her heart rate had picked up at the realization of yet another strange coincidence.

Her thoughts drifted to that foreign word left in that boy’s message. Mum. What she had told Nick was the truth; she had never been given the chance to find out if she had ever wanted to be a mother. Some agents in the organization did have families but they were exceedingly rare, and it was rarer for any female agent to have children. Not because they didn’t want them, but because it was a life almost impossible to raise children in. It was rumored that Jill had had a child but she had given the baby up for adoption, and of course Carrie was not so stupid to ask if it was true. But the idea that the word ‘Mum’ could be directed in any way to her at all was oddly gratifying, terrifying, and strange all at once. 

Which of course left her with the question of how it could be possible in the first place.

Her expression flattened and her fingers loosened their grip on the wheel. She already knew what the organization demanded she do but first she would go off-script, and hopefully not be sent to reeducation for it. 

_What do they make us forget when we’re sent there, after all_?

~/~/~/~/~

It was surprisingly easy to slip into the prison; of course it being part of their job was no small part of that, but she truly marveled at the human condition of seeing an ID of position and immediately accepting it as genuine. Hacking the system to set up the ready-made cover story and history for her entry had been preloaded hours before during the shift change.

“Prisoner 010036?” the man at the counter said in surprise. “She hasn’t had a visitor in years. Suppose she’ll be happy for the company.” The grim joke was said with a sharp grin, which surprised her slightly.

“Has she been giving you trouble as an inmate, then?”

“Trouble? No.” He picked up the phone and dialed a number, briefly glancing up at her as he did so. “She’s just been quite skilled at pleasuring the guards every so often.”

Her eyebrows flew upwards at the response, both surprised and impressed. More likely those same guards were not employed at the prison anymore which frankly was a shame-- she would have liked to hear their side of things, after all. She stood and thanked him for the information before being led down a hallway and up a flight of stairs, to a side room for her upcoming talk with her target.

“I’ll be right back with her, ma’am,” the guard named Harrison said with an easy smile. She nodded in response but had no interest in his reassurance, knowing already how all of this would play out. 

She sat in easy silence for several minutes by herself before finally the doors opened and the sound of shuffling feet and the rattling of handcuffs alerted her to her audience. Harrison gave her a quick glance as he came around the side of the table; still calm, collected—there wasn’t a chance he would break and change his mind. He seated his prisoner down in the chair opposite Carrie and took his leave for their allotted ten minutes.

“Claire,” Carrie said evenly.

Claire Ripley had not changed much from the photos that had been taken of her; she had lost a bit of weight, yes, and she seemed a bit tired, but she was utterly impassable as she looked across the table with her wide green eyes to meet Carrie’s gaze, even a little haughty. “So,” she said in a distinct Welsh accent, “what’s your name then? I should be allowed to know the name of my executioner, after all.”

One eyebrow sidled upwards. “Good instincts. Most of the targets never figure out I’m here to take care of them until the end of the conversation.”

Claire smirked, looking very like Jill in that moment due to it. “I’m not like most targets, though, am I?” Her own brows quirked downwards for a moment and she peered more closely at Carrie. “We haven’t met before, have we? I’m sorry, I met so many of you over the years I can never keep track. Bit rude of me, I know.”

“We haven’t, no.” She leaned more easily against the back of her chair, crossing her arms loosely in front of her. Claire frowned even more, her expression flickering suspiciously as she watched her situate herself. “I want to know some things before we move on to the messier stuff, and you seem to be the best candidate for my questions.”

Claire lifted her chin slightly. “And what’s in it for me? An easier death?” She was trying for bravado but she was underlined by a slight shake to the question, giving up her hand too soon.

Carrie smirked herself, making no secret that she knew what Claire was attempting to do. “You’ll die some way or another by the end this visit. I suppose it’s up to you which one you’ll get.”

“What do you want to know?”

Bingo. “Your casefile states you were in a town called Broadchurch before you were arrested for the murder of two girls. Why is that, then?”

Claire straightened so quickly that it was startling; her eyebrows rose almost to her hairline—and then her expression turned suddenly sly, calculating. Again she looked closely at Carrie, taking in the shape of her face, her eyes—and then she started to _laugh_ , darkly amused. “Oh, this is just too good! Good God, I didn’t recognize you. They really did a number on you, then, didn’t they, Ellie?” Her smile was sharp and all teeth, a predator preparing to strike as she leaned forward and whispered, “ _I’m so glad_.”

Feeling rattled, suddenly unsure, Carrie crossed her arms more firmly and allowed a bored expression to flit across her face. “My name is not _Ellie_ , Claire,” she said primly. “And you haven’t answered the question yet.”

“Oh, but I will! I didn’t really think you would make it through the training, you know, but here you are being the sweet little puppy you always were—you’re just following someone else around now instead of Alec.” Her smile was feral. “Did he make it through as well? Please tell me he didn’t.”

It took all of Carrie’s training to not snap a response, not even to show how much her heart was racing. Who were these people Claire was talking about? She stayed silent, determined to wait it out, refusing to potentially reveal anything too soon. The silence was a wonderful tactic, and eventually Claire grew bored with it. 

“The only reason I was in Broadchurch,” she said with icy hospitality, “was because I asked a man for help, and he turned it all around on me. Made me out to be the villain in a narrative he wanted so desperately to be true he dragged you into it too. You’re so beautifully _broken_ now, Ellie, but if you ever remember anything, remember this: Alec Hardy is the reason your life was ruined.” She sat back in her seat as well, smiling with far too many teeth still. “Did that answer your question?”

“Not at all.” But it might later on. She smiled back just as sharply, watching Claire grow increasingly more uncomfortable and unsure as the silence stretched on. Carrie stood from her chair. “Thank you for the information.” With that she turned and started for the door; counting down in her head, she was merely ten feet away when Claire’s voice spoke up thin and incredulous behind her.

“Is- is that really it, then? I- you haven’t _done_ anything—”

Carrie paused, letting the silence stretch on for a long moment, hearing the sound of Harrison’s returning footsteps. When she turned it was with another flat smile. “Oh, I’m not here for anything other than to let them know to act,” she said helpfully. “You should have been watching over your shoulder, Claire. Wasn’t that something the organization always told you to do?”

Harrison’s knotted rope flew over Claire’s head and tightened like a cinch around her throat, cutting off her breath as affectively as if she had been hanged; Harrison pushed her against the table and braced his knee against the small of her back to pull more efficiently, artfully avoiding her arms as she began to flail and choke. It really was almost a shame that Claire was handcuffed and thus unable to truly fight back—she likely would have been a much livelier target than some otherwise. What most interested Carrie with this particular case, however, was the fact that even as Claire feel limply against the table with her eyes growing dim and empty she met Carrie’s gaze and a cracked, wheezy laugh escaped her.

It was somehow triumphant, that sound, and it set Carrie’s instincts screaming. Forcing herself to ignore them for now, she looked to Harrison and nodded when he met her gaze. “You’ll find your payment within the next day, Mr. Harrison; make her death look like a suicidal hanging—we’ll sort out the paperwork and autopsy report.”

Money was no object, and Harrison had a love for it; smiling at her words he nodded and straightened from his bent-over posture. “Leave it to me, ma’am.”

She turned on her heel and left then without a word, having nothing else that needed to be said; he would so the job, he would be paid for it, and if he turned around and said something about it he would find himself killed as well.

As she climbed back into her car, she sat quietly. Ellie. _Ellie_. If it was supposed to sound familiar, it didn’t; but what use did Claire Ripley have in playing a game?

Well, one thing was certain: Carrie was done with playing games. The wait for records and information had gone on for long enough. Starting down the road she set her mouth and gripped the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip, determined to find some answers. 

~/~/~/~/~

_Ready_.

The text was the only clue she received that Nick was moving to find the records, her cue to provide her offered distraction, and she sat frozen in her seat for a second before she was up and moving. It was a rare day they had been called to headquarters together but it worked in their favor this time, and they had already discussed what was to be done. 

Cameras were everywhere, as per the organization’s preferences, but they did have their blind spots. It was risky to start a fire there but it was an easy way of providing that distraction she had promised him. When the usual wailing of the fire alarm started to echo down the building the flames had already eaten away at part of the wall and was licking at the ceiling, and the controlled rush to stop it was truly a masterpiece in teamwork. Circling around and rushing to the scene herself, she grabbed a fire extinguisher and went to join the group of people already fighting to put the flames out. 

The records were kept in a room three hallways over; the fire would provide him almost ten minutes of time, but he was familiar enough with them that it should only take him five.

~/~/~/~/~

Nick was not surprised to find that the others in the building fell for Carrie’s trick; knowing her, she probably wouldn’t care if the whole damn building burnt to the ground, she was so angry over the organization’s secrets. Not that he wasn’t any less angry or confused about it, of course; having been given the full whispered run-down of Carrie’s conversation with Claire Ripley, his loyalty to his superiors was wavering in the face of the organization’s duplicity.

As agents, after all, they had all been told they were volunteers in the organization’s actions, people who had chosen this lifestyle.

He had never been the most trusting of individuals, in any way, shape, or form—he simply wasn’t built that way. It was one of the several reasons, Carrie liked to tell him, why he did so well in the espionage business; that, she’d continued with a wide toothy smile, and because he was a secretive bastard who kept everything close to his chest.

Well, it wasn’t like he was going to actually _argue_ that. He didn’t particularly like most of humanity, he certainly didn’t trust them, and that was why he frequently didn’t show his hand too soon. It was simply easier to go through life that way.

Regardless, it was easier for him to slip into the records’ office than originally suspected—the difficult part would be not tripping any of the built in fail safes or key words a search would end up springing. He had been given a little more time and experience with the records than Carrie had, and so it didn’t take him very long to find his way through the various firewalls and passwords that they had set up. 

When it came to the actual searches, however, he had to pause several times and think his way through the maze of the potential traps and pitfalls. Anything too overt would instantly alert the organization and lead to their immediate reeducation; various vague words brought nothing up. 

Sitting back in the chair he tapped his fingers lightly against the desktop, thinking through his options; he refused to leave without _something_ , but every moment spent here was a moment more towards discovery. He could still hear the fire alarm going off in the hallway, which at least reassured him that he had time, but he was still stuck with the problem of what to do about finding any relevant information.

As it was, it was observation that had him find anything; the file systems in the organization’s computers held no answers of current agents or past recruits, nothing to explain the questions. Admitting defeat on that front, he reluctantly closed down the computer and simply sat for another moment before standing and stepping back from the desk. Closing out his sense of frustration he looked around the room and its trappings. 

Specifically, he looked at the dust in the room. For whatever reason there always seemed to be a lot of it and most of the time the computers and tables were wiped off, but nothing else. Files had to be somewhere, and if they weren’t on the computers they had to be stored physically.

It was in the corner between two bookshelves that he found it—a section of wall that appeared worn down by fingers rubbing against it, the absence of collected dust amidst a sea of it. Grinning to himself he felt along it until he felt an edge give under his fingers, and he gripped the hidden panel to pull it outwards.

Revealing a hidden cache of actual _paper files_. He stood for a moment looking down at them in amazement, wondering idly about the sense in having a literal paper trail, but the clock was winding down—rifling through the folders he found the name of the boy in the newspaper about halfway through: Miller. Plucking it up from amongst the others he flipped it open and inhaled sharply when, sure enough, Carrie’s familiar face smiled up at him. Ellie. He read the name with numb detachment, trying to figure out if it should sound familiar, trying it out in his head. _Ellie_.

He wrinkled his nose and shook his head. _No_.

The file was sparse in details, merely a statement that she was currently an active agent in the organization, but a quick scan of the second page mentioned a name that sprang out to him from the details of Claire Ripley’s last conversation. Rifling through the folders again he found the last name Hardy and picked that folder up too, just in case. 

Quietly shutting the compartment, he placed the chair back where it had been and slid the folders into his jacket, tucking them partially into his belt to keep them from slipping, and left the research center the way he’d found it. Not a moment too soon, either, because moments after he turned out of that hallway another agent came from the opposite direction and would have caught him red-handed.

Carrie was waiting impatiently for him at the rendezvous point, pacing back and forth and generally being more anxious than he’d ever seen her before. “Do you have it, then?” she demanded as soon as he was within hearing range.

“If I said I didn’t?” he asked snidely, stepping up to her side. Her mouth fell open and she started to speak, but he cut across her. “Don’t start in on me, I’ve got them here.”

She blinked, brows drawing down. “Them?”

He pulled the files out of his jacket and handed them over. “Take a look.”

Her hands were starting to tremble as she grabbed them; watching her closely he caught the sudden swell of emotion fly across her face before she opened the file labelled as ‘Ellie Miller’. A mix of shock and fear came first as she flipped the file open to reveal the photo he had already seen, but it quickly morphed to disbelief and then wide-eyed horror.  
He felt like he’d been kicked in the gut suddenly. Why did that expression seem so familiar all of a sudden? There was no correlating memory to explain it but he felt abruptly wrong-footed and even guilty for making her appear this way. He forced himself to take a deep breath and calm his racing heartbeat, taking his cue from her reaction.

“Same person,” she whispered, riveted by the sight of her own face. The woman in the photo was most definitely her, albeit younger, but with the same eyes and wide toothy smile. “Same as the newspaper article, I fucking _knew it_!” Swallowing down her rage, she shut the file and brought up the second. “Is this—?”

“Claire Ripley had mentioned an Alec Hardy,” he said quietly. “And they had a file.”

One corner of her mouth quirked in a half-smile. “You want me to check it, don’t you, you coward?” Without waiting for a reply—like he was _ever_ going to admit that she was right—she opened that one as well. By the way she froze again he had his answer even before she spoke again. “It’s you,” she said hoarsely, looking up at him with the same horrified expression, and then back to the files. “We worked together, see? Broadchurch, Dorset. We solved a boy’s murder together and then solved a years’-long case after that called Sandbrook.” Laying the files on the ground she pointed to the correlating dates, both of them trying their hardest to ignore the photos. “Ellie Miller stayed in Broadchurch, but it looks like Alec Hardy went off to a town near Sandbrook—”

“Look here,” he murmured, leaning over her shoulder to point at a specific date on both files. “Dates of death: five years ago.”

Carrie sat back heavily on her haunches, stunned into silence. Finally, though, she licked her lips and cleared her throat, struggling to find the words. “You know what this means.”

“Redundant statement,” he said dryly. “It means the organization can’t be trusted.” Taking the folders from her, he closed them both and set them aside, unable to look at them much more right now. It wasn’t truly a surprise when he thought about it—but of course he was a much more cynical person than her, even with all of their training. He went through life waiting to be let down. 

“So what are we doing, then? Leaving now, or putting the organization at ease first?”

He shook his head. “I’d say soon as possible, just in case. Reeducation…”

He didn’t finish that thought but of course she understood; reeducation was the one thing standing in their way that was truly terrifying now, the one thing that would make them forget everything they had just learned. At this point, such a serious breach of their protocol would perhaps even cause the organization to execute them. “Two days, then,” she said. “We’ll meet up at that old abandoned church St. Paul’s, down at the corner past the market.”

“We can’t immediately head to Broadchurch,” he told her—as if she didn’t already know that. 

“Then we’ll take the roundabout way, Nick. It’s not hard.” It would be _so_ hard. If the organization didn’t catch up to them and try to put them down she would be very surprised—which meant putting together enough evidence to put them down first. “Warning still stands, by the way—you betray me and this plan, I’ll kill you before they kill me.”

He rolled his eyes, vaguely annoyed. “Dramatic, much? I heard you the first time.”

“Just wanted to make sure you were paying attention.” The banter was easy and familiar, and now that she knew where it was coming from—this apparent former partnership as detectives—she could relax a little into it. None of what she had just read sounded familiar, and nor did it feel so but she supposed that would be to be expected. “I’ll take the files with me, then, and hide them with the newspaper clip until we meet at St. Paul’s.”

Two days. “I’ll go into town and buy a couple burner phones,” he said, his thoughts going down the same path as hers. “Ditch our current ones immediately. Gather up all of your first-aid stuff, too, just in case.”

No way that the organization wasn’t going to catch up to them eventually when they finally ran. The trick would be coming out on top of the fight, and having the necessary tools to clean up the blood.


	4. Part IV

The initial escaping was not the hard part; Carrie was most often left to her own devices in between assignments, and so it was relatively simple to leave the little cottage behind and walk the seven miles down the road to the village. St. Paul’s church was on the other side of it, partially overgrown with trees and covered with moss and creeping vines; it was one of the oldest buildings there, and it had burned to its tabby foundations almost fifty years ago.

Nick was already there waiting for her, never ceasing in his looking around for any potential eyes upon them. Their initial first day or so of travel was uneventful, as were the third and fourth; at that point both of them suspected that the organization were on their tail.

“You sure about this?” It wasn’t anxiety coloring his tone as they walked together, but plain curiosity. “It’s a bit obvious, don’t you think?”

“Ach, aye, it is,” she said with a sardonic grin, mimicking his accent. _Badly_ mimicking, which only made it more amusing, and by his expressive of rolling of his eyes he was not appreciative of her tactics. With a genuine grin she dropped the accent. “But that’s what makes it so _brilliant_.”

The building that they walked into was an expanse of abandoned warehouses near a river, far enough away from any prying eyes that they would have time for this confrontation they knew was coming. Their tail was good, as good as any in the organization, and Carrie at least suspected exactly who it was, but she and Nick had been working together for far too long to be caught entirely unawares. 

Sometimes the most obvious trap was the best trap. Abandoned warehouses certainly fit that bill. The building itself was creaky and smelled of damp and rust, and she had a disconcerting moment of what felt like déjà vu as she followed him into the creaky door he had to force open. 

“Thorpe,” she murmured, and wondered why she suddenly thought she should be wearing an orange windbreaker.

“What?” 

She blinked past her disorientation and shook her head, pushing aside her stray thoughts; now was not the time to be focusing on anything other than their tail. “Nothing. Everything’s fine.”

He glanced critically over his shoulder at her but wisely didn’t comment. Their tail would be too good to give themselves away, and so it was a waiting game at this point as they made their way into the open floor of the warehouse. Darkened lines of close-quartered shelves lined one wall and discarded tools lay in various states of decay around them. Fallen leaves crunched dryly under their shoes—a sound that ultimately saved their lives in the end, because disturbed leaves falling from the rafters ten feet to their left alerted them enough that they ducked for shelter. Metal screeched from the bullet that their would-be assassin shot at them, a bullet that would have sliced through Nick’s temple if he had still been standing there.

Carrie and Nick split off in separate directions, though, just before the silenced pistol went off. She caught sight of a shadow moving along the rafters as she ducked behind a sturdy cement column and reached for a small metal wrench on the floor. The only question would be who the tail went after.

She suspected she knew who the assassin was, and she wasn’t disappointed. The moment that their tail turned Carrie’s way she threw the wrench with force enough that the person had to turn sharply to miss it, and of course footing wasn’t the sturdiest on a narrow metal rod. 

Carrie grinned humorlessly when the shadow dropped into view. “Jill,” she called, and her voice carried eerily in the vast stillness around them.

Jill’s eyes were dark as she ducked for cover, anger and bloodlust evident in her expression as she caught her gaze. “Carrie. I will gut you for this. Has the organization not cared for you, provided for you when you had nothing?”

She bared her teeth. “No.” 

And then she fell to fighting. To believe that she and Nick had an automatic advantage over Jill was a disastrous mistake, and it was one she refused to make, and of course the latter merely proved that. Jill was part of the inner circle, where only the hardest the best made it, and she was more than a match for both of them.

Carrie had the advantage starting off, having rushed Jill when all moves dictated to do was an insane move, and Jill had indeed hesitated a fraction of a second too long seeing her doing it. It gave Carrie the time she needed to slide past Jill’s rising arm, gripping her forearm, and landing an elbow in Jill’s face and an open palm on her hand managed to wrest the pistol from her grip. Jill fell backwards with blood dripping from her nose and a snarl on her face, and she caught her next attack with experienced hands, kicking upwards to glance Carrie’s knee and then glancing her ribs in the next moment. In the second that Carrie fell backwards from the impact Jill hit her harder across the ribs with enough force she was knocked to her knees from the sudden pain.

Then Nick was there, catching Jill’s downturned fist aimed at Carrie’s temple, and he flung her aside with more force than finesse, giving Carrie the time to stand back up. But Jill’s focus had changed, her bloodlust aimed now at him, and it seemed that her former agent was forgotten.

Jill and Nick had always hated each other; idly Carrie wondered now what it was that had started that in the first place, but it was a question quickly banished when they fell to fighting again. And this time Jill had a knife. Carrie cursed under her breath and ignored the flare of pain from her ribs as she spun away to search for something that would help them put Jill down for good. The pistol would be good, but it was in the opposite direction that she was and she likely wouldn’t have time to find it.

Jill dealt two blows on Nick that hit true—one when he didn’t move in time and the knife’s blade cut a long gash in his cheek before he was able to knock it aside. The second came directly after he had landed a direct hit in her stomach, doubling her over and knocking the wind from her lungs, and with a snarl of rage she had struck out again with the knife to catch the edge of his arm.

Jill swept up with the knife, arm extended to deal the killing blow as he fell back—and the axe Carrie had managed to find smashed into her elbow. The splintering of bone and the meaty thunk of the blade making contact was astonishingly loud, mainly because like all through all of their training Jill didn’t allow herself to scream. She merely completed her pirouette and made to swipe at his sternum, but her balance was off now and it was all he needed to deflect the blade, force it from her hand, and grasp her injured arm and twist it savagely.

Jill’s face greyed and her knees buckled as the agony hit her all at once, and she spilled inelegantly on the floor, blood smearing across its concrete surface. Carrie immediately jumped forward and pinned her to the floor, weaving away from Jill’s defensive kick to try and dislodge her, and Nick picked up the knife to hold it against the wildly-beating artery of her jugular. Her sharp intake of breath was her only response, but she froze nonetheless and looked up at him hatefully. “Going to kill me now?”

“I’d like to,” he growled back, his hand very steady. “Got a few questions for you first.”

“Like I’d tell _you_ anyth—” She cut herself off with another short gasp as Carrie pulled back on her arms hard, pulling particularly harshly on the one they’d broken. 

“Answer the questions,” Carrie said through gritted teeth, “and I won’t have to hurt you so badly. And you _know_ I want to.”

Jill swallowed hard, her expressionless mask cracking for the first time. For all her bravado, she was clearly nervous, even curiously resigned—she hadn’t expected to actually turn out as the loser in this fight, and now she would pay the price for it. If her arm wound didn’t kill her first. “You want to know if it’s true. If you're the people the files... say.”

“ _Obviously_.” The disdain in his tone was enough to make even Carrie grimace.

Jill wheezed a laugh, matching him in his impatience and disdain. “Your lives before… both of you were _pathetic_. Broken. We took you both and created something _beautiful_.”

He caught Carrie’s eye for just a moment, both of them taken aback by her easy confirmation and equally wary of it. There was no hint of a lie in her response, though, and caught as she was there was no reason to—but lying was what they did in the organization. “We weren’t given the choice to give up those lives, though, were we?” he asked softly, dangerous. 

“No.” Again the reply was short. “And that was… beautiful, too.”

“How many others were like us, then?” Carrie demanded, hating the tone of her response. “How many others did you take from their _pathetic_ lives to make them work for the organization?”

The injury was catching up to Jill; her breathing was becoming labored, her skin greying even more; it was possible one of the arteries had been nicked. “You…think I know… that?”

“You’ve been a higher-up for years,” Carrie said, nearly snarling in her fury. “You know something.”

Jill laughed another short, pained laugh, disbelieving and scornful. “I know… that you’ll never… get very far before the organization… finds you again.”

Carrie met his eyes over Jill’s head, eyes widening in realization at what that response meant; he could have kicked himself for being so stupid. “Trackers,” he said aloud, and in that moment of their frozen surprise Jill tried to surge forward and throw Carrie’s weight off of her. She just about managed it—with a soft grunt of surprise Carrie did slide off of her back, but she still had hold of Jill’s arms and in retaliation she twisted them again savagely; the further snapping of bone and the tearing of tendons was stomach-turning, and it finally proved too much for Jill. Shock and added agony made her eyes roll back in her head and she slumped to the floor unconscious.

Not concerned in the least, he bent down and checked her pulse—sluggish, thready. “Doesn’t have long now,” he said quietly as he straightened. “We won’t have to worry about her waking up again.”

“You’re not going to make sure of it?” Carrie asked curiously as she stood as well, and wrinkled her nose critically at the pooling blood. “Going to have to clean that up. Don’t want anyone finding out where she’s died.”

He stared down at the silent figure at their feet with a dark glower, fingering the knife as he thought about his options. He had never liked Jill—hated her, actually—and was not particularly upset about her dying now. Was he tempted to actively do it? Oh yes. “No,” he said shortly, and he turned away. He could hear Carrie hum under her breath quizzically at his reply, probably taken aback, but she would calm down soon enough and not be tempted to slice Jill’s throat open herself. All he had to do was wait. He was more focused on their new knowledge of trackers. “Stupid,” he hissed under his breath, running a hand through his hair as he paced back and forth. They were _both_ stupid for not thinking of something like that. “What would help us find something as small as a tracker? Would it be plastic, or metal? If Jill was right the organization already knows where we are, so are we going to be attacked now? Or are they going to give us time to regroup like some perverted cat and mouse game?”

“More likely they’re playing a cat and mouse game,” Carrie said from where she was standing. “You know that that is part of their MO sometimes.” She looked down critically at Jill and frowned, bending down again and checking her pulse. “Hmm. We’ll have to find a place to stash her body, Nick,” she said. “Good thing we’re in plenty of wooded land.” She stood again and dusted off her trousers, looking over at him now, and he could see she was noticeably calmer. “First thing’s first: we need to find some more bandages and medical supplies for those cuts you’ve got. Then we need to find something that’s going to let us locate the trackers so we can get them out.”

“Shouldn’t we worry about the trackers first?” he asked, amused. “Seeing as they’re letting the organization know exactly where we are?”

“We’ll worry about that as we come to it. They’ll likely give us time to regroup so they can play with us again, which gives us time to kick them in the arse.” She bent down to grab hold of Jill’s legs. “C’mon, then. Help me carry her outside.”

~/~/~/~/~

After Jill’s body was properly disposed of, the two of them found an old abandoned farm house they could use for the night to regroup and plan. Carrie had slipped into three different pharmacies to restock the first-aid supplies they’d taken with them, both to clean and disinfect their various injuries—and to do something about the thing that had allowed Jill to find them in the first place. 

“Should’ve realized it,” he said where he was seated, still annoyed they had missed such a vital piece of information, and he rolled up the torn sleeve of his shirt to take a better look at the knife wound on his arm. The one on his cheek was mostly dry now but it was still red and angry looking, and they needed tending to. 

Sitting in front of him and rifling through the assortment of bandages and antiseptic wipes, she hummed under her breath in distracted agreement. “And we call ourselves agents,” she said, only half-kidding. Pulling out a handful of wipes, she handed them over. “Make yourself useful, then, while I work on cleaning your face. You may want to start thinking about growing out your beard again to hide that until it heals.”

“Thanks for the advice,” he said sarcastically, glaring at her. “Ouch! Christ, _really_?”

She smiled toothily at him, pressing just a little too heavily with the wipe on his arm. “Sorry. Don’t know my own strength, me. _Behave_ , will you?”

“Don’t know the meaning of the word,” he grumbled, but it was without bite and he did do as she’d said. As she finished up with the cut on his face he worked on his arm and wrapped it, luckily having missed the need for stitches. Carrie didn’t have any physical injuries except for bruising and her tender ribs, but that would ultimately work in their favor. For now they were more focused instead on the latest spanner in the works. 

“We’ll have to be quick about it,” she said quietly. “Who knows what sort of traps they’ve placed on a tracker?” With the organization, anything was possible. “We still need to figure out who’s going to do it first.”

“Thought we _had_ settled that.”

“Yeah, and if you think you can volunteer to work on me first because you’re some sort of fucking martyr—”

“Bloody hell, will you shut up about that? No, as a matter of fact, that’s not why I’ve told you I’ll work on yours first. Your hands are already shaking. How much control over yourself are you going to have right now?”

She glared over at him murderously, caught with the logic of his question; damn him, she had tried to hide how anxious she really was, but of course he had seen it. “Not much,” she admitted grudgingly, sighing. “Fine. You’re not allowed to faint at the sight of blood, though.”

“No, I think I’ll leave that to you.”

“Fucker!”

It took nearly an hour, quite a bit of said blood, and her biting into a shirt to muffle her screaming aloud, but ultimately he found it—a tiny tracker implanted in the flesh of her shoulder, no bigger than her fingernails and still running. They were running a huge risk of both further injury and infection, but unfortunately they had no other choice—sanitizing one of the needles off as well as he could with an antiseptic wipe he set to work on sewing the incision shut. He had argued for trying to find at least one trustworthy surgeon to perform the actual looking for the tracker for the sake of hygiene, but she had argued right back with the point that neither of them knew who the organization would throw at them next, and the trackers could and ultimately would lead to their recapture eventually. Reluctantly he had agreed, knowing she was right, but he still didn’t care for it. There was so much that could and so often did go wrong when things were attempted like this.

He couldn’t disagree with this final result, though—they had one of the trackers to show for their shit plan, and she seemed fascinated despite her pain. Shifting gingerly with her unhurt shoulder she tilted just enough to peer down at it.

“Told you I wouldn’t faint,” he said dryly, and she snorted a laugh. 

“Pleasantly surprising, that.” He dropped it into her hand when she gestured, wanting nothing else to do with it, but she moved it back and forth in her palm, leaving a smear of blood behind. “Not so surprising that they have these, though I do wonder how the organization put them in to begin with. There are no scars from a previous surgery.”

“Unless they used skin grafts.”

“Bloody hell, I didn’t think of that. Likely, though.”

He finished with the last stitch and cut the thread, covering it with a thick gauze pad and taping it firmly. “How does it feel?”

“Like there’s a chunk missing from my shoulder.” Gingerly she shifted on the cot and hissed as it immediately pulled at the wound. “Other than that, I’m fine.” Using her uninjured side she pushed herself up on one arm and turned to look at him. “You now.”

“With that arm?” His gaze was critical as he raised his eyebrows. “How do you expect to do that?”

“With determination. Now shut your mouth and let me work on getting the tracker.” It proved harder for her, of course, the fresh stitches in her shoulder inhibiting easy reach in their impromptu surgery, but in some ways it was easier—they already knew where the tracker would be, after all, and so she didn’t have to make as long an incision or grope as much as he had for hers. Of course it was just as painful, and the rolled-up cloth was used again, but ultimately she had it out, the incision stitched up, and gauze taped over it in short order. 

“Should keep ‘em,” he said, holding it in his hand. “We’ll need the evidence.”

“That’ll only work if we can shut them off,” Carrie said pointedly, cleaning up the remainders of their mess as well as she could. She cursed under her breath when the stitches pulled again. The trackers would be a fantastic piece of said evidence when it came to the story-telling, but ultimately her logic won out. They would have to go.

At the very least, they had managed to put a bit more distance between themselves and the organization; one more day to live.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the characters-stich-themselves-up-at-home trope is overused, especially since it's so easy to not get rid of all the germs in real life and get an infection because of it, but I felt like maybe this story gives them a little more leeway to do it. And they're not getting away scot-free for doing it themselves, either!
> 
> Next chapter we'll be seeing some of our resident Broadchurch characters show up and the plot will begin in earnest.


End file.
